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Please DISCUSS the changes and the impact they will have on gameplay.
Straight up whining and bitching will get you a ban, no exceptions. |
On February 14 2012 18:38 Shikyo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 18:17 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:06 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:01 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 17:50 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 17:42 Thrombozyt wrote:
Suggested changes to make the BC useful:
- Can move while shooting
- Can utilize air-to-ground and air-to-air batteries simultaneously
Optional: Upon research of the behemoth reactor, the BC gains 1 extra dmg.
Those first two are actually really good ideas. what lol? The second one is like the most superbroken thing in the world. "Hey, we thought the second highest dps unit in the game doesn't have enough dps, so we changed it that it deals now +75% damage in most realistic scenarios. "In our next patch we will experiment with hydra range a little bit because it could be higher. We thought about 20." Yeah but have you looked at its DPS for cost? BCs need some kind of buff, they're almost as unused as carriers in high level play. No, because it is an endgame unit. You have to look at its dps per supply as well as the supply cap is one of the most limiting factors at that time. (and you want supplyefficient armies at that time... noone cares about the roach being one of the most costefficient units if you fight 200 vs 200 with it) Also the dps is not the only great thing about the cruiser. 3armor and 550HP as an air unit, that's beefier than an ultralisk. Then add Yamato Canon... There is a reason why a lot of people go mass BC in noncompetetive areas: it's already the best unit in the game statswise and can only be beaten by 1unit per race. If you make the BC only some kind of costefficient as well, you just give Terran an ultimate goal: "get 20cruiser, lift your buildings and you win". I guess the air/ground simultanous attack would not change that BCs could get countered by Corruptor/Voidray/Viking, but it would just make going battlecruise so costefficient, that anytime an opponent uses ground, you would just go BC. If he goes air as well, the costefficieny of the BC investment would go through the roof. If he stays ground... mass BCs and win. What situations are those where they'd attack both air and ground at the same time? TvT? Nope, Vikings would kite them to oblivion. TvP? I guess they'd ehh... use the air attack vs Colossus? TvZ? Perhaps, though Corruptors would still destroy them in no time.. Those situations happen far less often than you think. Oh yeah and one more thing, air attack usually isn't something you upgrade very early on, so it's likely that at least AtG-wise you're up against very highly armored units, and in that case a Battlecruiser's DPS is greatly diminished Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 18:26 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:23 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:17 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:06 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:01 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 17:50 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 17:42 Thrombozyt wrote:
Suggested changes to make the BC useful:
- Can move while shooting
- Can utilize air-to-ground and air-to-air batteries simultaneously
Optional: Upon research of the behemoth reactor, the BC gains 1 extra dmg.
Those first two are actually really good ideas. what lol? The second one is like the most superbroken thing in the world. "Hey, we thought the second highest dps unit in the game doesn't have enough dps, so we changed it that it deals now +75% damage in most realistic scenarios. "In our next patch we will experiment with hydra range a little bit because it could be higher. We thought about 20." Yeah but have you looked at its DPS for cost? BCs need some kind of buff, they're almost as unused as carriers in high level play. No, because it is an endgame unit. You have to look at its dps per supply as well as the supply cap is one of the most limiting factors at that time. (and you want supplyefficient armies at that time... noone cares about the roach being one of the most costefficient units if you fight 200 vs 200 with it) Also the dps is not the only great thing about the cruiser. 3armor and 550HP as an air unit, that's beefier than an ultralisk. Then add Yamato Canon... There is a reason why a lot of people go mass BC in noncompetetive areas: it's already the best unit in the game statswise and can only be beaten by 1unit per race. If you make the BC only some kind of costefficient as well, you just give Terran an ultimate goal: "get 20cruiser, lift your buildings and you win". I guess the air/ground simultanous attack would not change that BCs could get countered by Corruptor/Voidray/Viking, but it would just make going battlecruise so costefficient, that anytime an opponent uses ground, you would just go BC. If he goes air as well, the costefficieny of the BC investment would go through the roof. If he stays ground... mass BCs and win. Noncompetitive games mean less than nothing for balance purposes. And if the unit is such an "I win" button as you're making it sound, why then is it still almost completely unused in pro tournaments? Edit: Sorry misread that. You were saying it would be that good if given the simultaneous ground and air attack. I'm not convinced that's the case but your argument makes sense. It wouldn't hurt to test it in a PTR though would it? ofc it wouldn't really hurt. But would it hurt to buff hydralisks, carriers, reaper... nerf marines, marauder, banelings, colossi, stalker, roaches.. as well? The question is, does the game need this kind of every unit is available costefficiently? I'm not even sure if the game would be really good, if every unit was balanced in a way that it is evenly good (in some way), because then there would be no real downside of going random units all game long. The difference there is that Hydras and Reapers aren't the capital ultimate weapon of the race, even though yeah they'd deserve a buff. And I don't think anyone would mind a Carrier buff either. If you tech up to the top of the tech tree you really should be getting something that's better than a unit you have available for 50 minerals the moment your Barracks is finished.
Then they have to redesign BC/Carriers. You can't have a unit that is only engageable by one single unit per race (Carrier by more, because Terran/Protoss antiair is so good) because it is so versatile and then buff it further without risking that this unit could become a "I win button".
That's why I absolutly love the ideas of Guardian/Broodlord and Tempest as capital ships. They are air/ground superiority units, but not some kind of superversatile fighters. They are allowed to be the best in their role, because they need support.
A BC/Carrier unit (meaning a beefy supply efficient combat unit that can fight ground and air) will always have to fight with being either too strong or too weak. It's pretty impossible to really make them "just right", at least not in SC2.
If anything, you can argue about the availability of such a unit should be different (earlier; easier to switch into them; faster to mass; better way to upgrade them)
Note: I'm not saying such a buff necessarily would make the BC go from UP to OP immidiatly. I just think that the BC is already pretty good against anyone that can't really produce its counter AND it gets a buff in HotS anyways AND any changes/buffs to it really are extremly low priority when it comes down to what the next patches should work on.
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On February 14 2012 17:33 Thrombozyt wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 14:48 Kharnage wrote:On February 14 2012 14:34 mlspmatt wrote:On February 14 2012 13:09 Kharnage wrote:On February 14 2012 12:23 mlspmatt wrote:On February 14 2012 11:58 Kharnage wrote:On February 14 2012 11:28 mlspmatt wrote:On February 14 2012 10:59 Whitewing wrote:On February 14 2012 10:29 Vladoks wrote:
yeah feedback is a big problem for lategame tvp, terran has great units like thors (and well bcs.. i dont know) but can't use them because they lose their hp so fast with feedback :-/ u could emp your own units but ghosts and ghost energy are too precious for that That didn't stop Ryung against Tassadar, and it seemed to work pretty well. Assuming they hit feedback on your BC when it's at completely full energy, it won't even take out half it's hp, and you can EMP it or just Yamato a building or something (or even rocks!). As for upgrades folks, you get them anyway for your vikings. This is what people argue who have no valid arguments to make. Make Battle Cruisers. It's been tried, it doesn't work. If your in a Max v Max battle and want to remax with 4 battle Cruisers. After the battle you start building your BC's, and wait the 90s for them to build. In that 90 seconds Toss can use his 15 gates to wapr in 30 supply 3 times before your BC's hit the field. How do you suggest Terran survives during that 90 seconds when 24 supply is occupied in the starport? That's assuming BC's give you any real advantage, which they don't. 4 Stalkers are about the same cost as 1 BC, are much more mobile, have more health, very similar DPS (Both fully upgraded) and can be produced much much faster. It simply doesn't make sense to make BC's. And yes of course Terran will have marauders to handle the Stalkers, but protoss will have charge-Lots + Archons to handle the marauders. There's no advantage to making BC's. And if you take into consideration the cost of getting the BC tech, it's a losing proposition for terran. Who said anything about re-maxing on BC? When you're remaxing you want as many units as fast as possible so you don't die. It's like Protoss 'remaxing' on Carriers. Good way to die. I'm talking about at the point where you start sacking SCV's to increase army size don't waste your extra size on 4 more marauders when Protoss is already doing everything they can do counter exactly that. The 'upgrades' required are what, a Fusion core and a starport with tech lab? Terran can so afford that at that stage of the late game. The resources are there, the time is there, usually there are too big arse armies dancing around the map, Protoss are trying to get a decent re-max bank and finishing off upgrades. Terran are getting a PFs up and sacking SCV's to for a bigger army. And honestly, pick whatever unit you want, the BC is just an obvious choice. The fact is that Terran banks a shitload of gas in that stage of the game and uses their extra 25 army supply on units that Protoss already has a way to deal with. That 25 supply is Terran's edge in the late game, and it's being squandered away on a handful of extra marines, marauders and maybe an extra ghost. You could fit 3 BC's in there, Yamoto an SCV before battle and use the BC's to control space while you micro your bio. Love to see how those zealots fare as they chase a kiting bio army while under fire from 3 BCs. Yes, some damage will come from storms and feedback on the BCs, yes some stalkers will take them down, but I'd be willing to bet you'd get more value from 3 BCs as your 'bonus supply' than you will from 12 more Maruaders getting stormed and cut apart by colossus. First of all, Terrans are not going to invest in BC tech to make just one round of them. There will come a time when Terran needs to use them as part of their remax army, then they are stuck waiting for them to build while their base is being torn apart, or they engage and lose their entire army. Secondly you pawned off the Stalker issue by saying "Yes, some damage will come from storms and feedback on the BCs, yes some stalkers will take them down"this is what people say when they have no ligitimate response. They pawn it off as no big deal to minimize its importance, when it is the core of the issue. I didn't bring up fedback or storms in my earlier comment. I didn't need to, the Stalkers alone prove the point. There has to be a reason to spend all those resources on BC's and the tech required. There has to be an advantage gained somewhere or it's not worth the investment. You've not yet made a single point as to what advantage the BC's offer. They don't control any space with range 6. Sure, they'll kill a few extra Zealots while your bio army kites, but at the same time the stalkers are killing them. So I, the terran, killed a few extra Zealots with my BC's and your Stalkers killed my BC's. I think Protoss wins that one. You also added that BC's are just an example, and then don't suggest what unit exactley terrans should add that helps them. Thors? Ravens? What unit exactley is going to help Terran so much that it's better than the units that Terran has already invested in and upgraded? And it's not enough to suggest units without saying HOW exactley they are going to help, and if they are better than what terran already has. Otherwise your just "Throwing it out there" with little or no thought behind it and it's not worth much debate. Ok, the reason I didn't throw out 'how' to use it is because something like that needs to be workshopped with people who want to attempt to make it work instead of people who just want to say why it won't. So, there are two kinds of protoss death ball, stalker colossus and zealot colossus. Look at recent GSL Genius vs MKP for a great example of stalker colossus and Parting vs Jjakji for the zealot colossus variant. Obviously is you're facing stalker colossus BC is bad juju. Maybe thors are better in that situation since thors are better vs stalkers? Or maybe you should just be throwing away as many marines as you can and maxxing on pure maruader in that situation. Anyway, assuming you're facing a zealot heavy, low colossus count, low stalker count, high HT count composition like Parting fielded I think BC's would be a great addition for a couple of reasons: Zealots and colossus don't shoot up and the low stalker count will take forever to kill BCs. Infact, 3 BCs will probably kill all the stalkers first. Archons DO shoot up, and will get distracted by the BC. Their damage vs BC is pretty damn awful, so something tanking their damage is great. You can Yamoto the Colossus and / or focus fire the colossus and have no vikings at all. This means that when the colossus die you have supply that can shoot down, which is better than supply that can't shoot down. You can use the BC's as a pivot point to kite around making the micro tasks of the protoss player harder (stopping zealots and colossus from chasing the bio while the range shoots the BC for example). If the protoss player is grabbing HT's from all over the map to bring in storms then he won't be micro'ing his army much which means you can deal with the zealots without the pain of the archons and stalkers. The protoss will probably remax with a bunch of stalkers which eats his resources faster than zealot / HT -> archon meaning you know that remaxing marauder is a great idea. OK. If Terran can catch the protoss in Zealot/Archon/Colossus composition, I see how BC's can work. But it's very risky. If they're scouted and lose the element of surprise I think terran is in deep trouble and it's hard to hide starports from observers. In a straight up fight where both players know the other players composition, and react properly, I don't see the value in BC's. I don't think they offer any value for the extra cost of the tech required. But as a surprise they can work. But again, hiding BC's and their tech is going to be near impossible if the Toss is scouting properly. It's a big risk. Sure BC's can work under the right circumstances, but I don't see it as standard play - which is what we're talking about. Can you define "standard" play for me? Not trolling, just defining scope of discussion. I would think that with terran having such a hard time of "standard" play they would be look for solutions in the "non-standard" box to pull out and use. Especially situational stuff like 'Ah ha! he's over making zealots, slam down that fusion reactor and don't engage. Buy time for 2 BC then crush it". I think we've moved beyond "I get MMM + Ghost or Viking depending on if I see HT or Colossus first and just get as much of that as possible. I hope my EMPs are better than his storms." In the phase of a game, where I can "slam down that fusion reactor" (it's fusion core btw) and get two BCs giving your opponent three minutes to do what he wants can be deadly. But well.. lets say I manage to surprise him with 2 BCs. Also lets say he doesn't just sack 20 zealot with a counter attack and then buys time (the crucial FIVE SECONDS) to warp in 20 stalkers. And lets also say that on the way to the engagemet - BCs moving at breakneck speed - I continue to hide my BCs from his observers. The fight is there!! Terran gets rolled :/ How long does it take a +1 weapon BC to kill a single zealot (who in this phase will have 3/1/3)? 6 shots through the shields, then 20 shots through the HP. So my mighty battlecruiser kills a zealot every 5.85 seconds. Rawr. THAT turns the tide. WIth the typical engagement lasting 10 seconds tops before I have stutter stepped my bio army way out of reach of the BC range, each BC kills TWO zealots. Yes.. eat that protoss. But then you say: Focus the colossus! Colossus takes 19 shots through shields and then 40 shots through the hull. Two BCs firing bring a colossus down in 6.6 seconds. Thus my bio just has to endure 26seconds of colossus fire (or 40 volleys). You know how a bio army looks after 40 volleys of a colossus? Toasted. But maybe the toss is a standard toss who just a-moves and then claps his hand while he giggles gleefully. In THIS case, BC are slightly more useful, because the archons fire at them. But honestly.. in this case I rather float factories over my army. They are cheaper, have WAY more hp and cost no supply and I can build them MUCH MUCH quicker and closer to the battlefield. Now if you start me on the yamato cannon to take down those colossus... then you stretch the time you need to get BCs with yamato by another 2 minutes... just to get feedbacked by the HT that will be in the army. So how do YOU envision the 'BC a la surprise' to work? Buy SOMEHOW more time while you research ship weapons lvl 2+3? It's just a measely 410 seconds - SEVEN MINUTES!
Firstly, if someone wants to sack 20 zealots, then dump 2500 mins and 1000 gas to counter 3 BC's then I think you just won the game. Also consider this, stalker armies lost Half their total hp to EMP. Zealot armies lost a Third. Terran is substantially better off facing stalkers than they are zealots.
Secondly, you haven't been watching your GSL have you. Every terran in TvP is getting reasonably quick air upgrades to at LEAST +2 air attack at about the time Colossus start appearing. If you had the planning to go "if they are zealot heavy I'll get a fusion core and air attack +3. Swap my 2 starports onto tech labs and get 2 or 3 BCs. Done." Now lets look at how long it takes to tear down a 3/3/3 zealot. 18 shots total, 12 if you land an EMP first.
Thirdly, put the cost and build time aside, would you rather have 6 marines VS a chargelot/archon/colossus/HT army or a BC. both are 6 supply. Or 3 Marauders. How much additional help will 3 marauders or 6 marines be when you have 140 supply of MMMGV. And lets say to manage that you also cut say, 1 Viking. So 1 Viking, 1 Marauder and 2 Marines. I think that's worth a BC on the field. Building 1 BC is less supply than a FUCKING DROP. Are you really telling me that losing 1 medivac of marines at end game is game over. You're fucked now! That was 10 supply that wasn't with your army the ENTIRE TIME it was in flight, and then it just DIED MAN! Holy fucking shit, you're ruined!! AND YOU HAD 3 IDLE SCVS!!!
Lastly, say the big engagement happens, and all your 3 BCs accomplish is to soak up 2 rounds of stalker fire and kill 3 colossus. That's it. Worth it? FUCK YES. Those colossus are the Might of the protoss army. The big meaty fist of "I don't give a fuck if you have 35 marines, die sucker!!"
Fuck the surprise part, WTF are protoss going to do? Go stalker heavy and allow your stimmed bioball to get 1 round of free shots off and EMP'd while they blink under the BCs, losing their colossus support and zealot meat shield to kill them?
Get some VR that get slaughtered by vikings or marines and have no upgrades cause protoss NEVER USE AIR in PvT?
Ignore the BCs and charge your Planetary Fucking Fortress while their Colossus ALL DIE. BC's are flying TANKS that have a crap load of health and armour and can't be ignored. You have to deal with the damn thing. They aren't going to magically kill everything, they aren't going to rofl stomp their way through the fight. Hell, they won't even live to see the end of the engagement. What they will do is force protoss to a less focused composition. They give you a damn sight more to your end game effectiveness than a viking and 2 marauders, or any other combination of terran units currently in play.
The key is to not make too many.
Just like colossus. 2 or 3 colossus leaves the terran thinking 'how many vikings is too many and i'll lose to the gateway army? how many is not enough and the colossus kill everything?' If protoss get 12 colossus Terran laugh all the way to victory as they get enough vikings to 1 shot them, EZPZ. How many BCs do you need to be effective, while not allowing protoss to shift their entire composition in such a way to hard counter them. 12 to 18 supply is not a huge commitment, especially if it means you can cut to 6 vikings...
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On February 14 2012 18:26 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 18:23 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:17 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:06 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:01 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 17:50 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 17:42 Thrombozyt wrote:
Suggested changes to make the BC useful:
- Can move while shooting
- Can utilize air-to-ground and air-to-air batteries simultaneously
Optional: Upon research of the behemoth reactor, the BC gains 1 extra dmg.
Those first two are actually really good ideas. what lol? The second one is like the most superbroken thing in the world. "Hey, we thought the second highest dps unit in the game doesn't have enough dps, so we changed it that it deals now +75% damage in most realistic scenarios. "In our next patch we will experiment with hydra range a little bit because it could be higher. We thought about 20." Yeah but have you looked at its DPS for cost? BCs need some kind of buff, they're almost as unused as carriers in high level play. No, because it is an endgame unit. You have to look at its dps per supply as well as the supply cap is one of the most limiting factors at that time. (and you want supplyefficient armies at that time... noone cares about the roach being one of the most costefficient units if you fight 200 vs 200 with it) Also the dps is not the only great thing about the cruiser. 3armor and 550HP as an air unit, that's beefier than an ultralisk. Then add Yamato Canon... There is a reason why a lot of people go mass BC in noncompetetive areas: it's already the best unit in the game statswise and can only be beaten by 1unit per race. If you make the BC only some kind of costefficient as well, you just give Terran an ultimate goal: "get 20cruiser, lift your buildings and you win". I guess the air/ground simultanous attack would not change that BCs could get countered by Corruptor/Voidray/Viking, but it would just make going battlecruise so costefficient, that anytime an opponent uses ground, you would just go BC. If he goes air as well, the costefficieny of the BC investment would go through the roof. If he stays ground... mass BCs and win. Noncompetitive games mean less than nothing for balance purposes. And if the unit is such an "I win" button as you're making it sound, why then is it still almost completely unused in pro tournaments? Edit: Sorry misread that. You were saying it would be that good if given the simultaneous ground and air attack. I'm not convinced that's the case but your argument makes sense. It wouldn't hurt to test it in a PTR though would it? ofc it wouldn't really hurt. But would it hurt to buff hydralisks, carriers, reaper... nerf marines, marauder, banelings, colossi, stalker, roaches.. as well? The question is, does the game need this kind of every unit is available costefficiently? I'm not even sure if the game would be really good, if every unit was balanced in a way that it is evenly good (in some way), because then there would be no real downside of going random units all game long.
The actual point I was trying to make initially is that the BC switch praised before in TvP is utter bullshit and it's even more bullshit in TvZ, as in TvZ there is ALWAYS either infestors or corruptors - most likely both - out by the time you make battlecruisers.
Yes, in a vacuum, where the terran can spam a ton of BC with full upgrades, they are very good. In a real game situation where things like "how fast can I produce a unit", "how is the likely upgrade situation" and "how much of a reaction does this force out of my opponent" are important, the BC just sucks unbelievably hard.
The secondary post (the one that mattered less) with the suggestions that might players lead to consider using battle cruisers got picked up. Even if those suggestions are picked up, I really doubt that in competitive play you would see BCs so much more, because the MOST IMPORTANT drawback of battlecruisers is not adressed. By the time you can field them, they will have 0-1 attack upgrade while its targets will have 2-3 armor upgrades. Suddenly your mighty DPS sucks hard.
While we are at the "OMG BC! SO MUCH DPS!" argument:
Usually the damage efficiency of a unit is given in DPSPF (damage per second per food). The BC has on equal upgrades against an unarmored target 5.9DPSPF. The zealot has 6.65. The hydralisk has 7.25.
Yes, that's right. 3 Zealots deal more dmg to ground targets than 1 battlecruiser, even when on equal upgrades.
Three stalkers need 18.7 seconds to kill a carrier. A battlecruiser takes 28.1 seconds to kill that carrier. Same upgrades and all.
So spare me with the "OMG BC NO BUFF OR IMBA" howling. You are reinforcing the zerg cliche.
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From mediocre player's, but viewer's perspective:
Mule change: I really love it, because I want to see gold-bases back in the game. They just added another exciting factor into the games. Honestly it becomes pretty boring if you are not too much into the very minute details to watch the same standard play over and over. Taking a risk by going for gold seemed to make mid-game (sometimes early game by crazy lift-offs) much more exciting and enjoyable. I know, gimmicky play shouldn't be rewarded, but a decent risk-reward that doesn't result in auto-win / loss increases the viewing experience and match diversity.
Ghost Snipe Change: I don't know what to think of it. Seems kinda harsh, especially because Zerg can easily re-max and marauders / vikings are only good against either Broodlords or Ultras. I don't really see BCs / Ravens fill that gap, but maybe we are in for a surprise here. Kinda smells like a follow-up patch will be necessary though. I don't see snipe being used against infestors/HTs as much, until they get split more effectively (right now EMP seems to be almost always the better choice, even though Toss are getting better splitting HTs). Too bad Snipes don't one-shot banelings anymore (which they should), which (even if rarely) let to an awesome defense.
Phoenix: I have no idea how this will turn out. I don't really see Protoss making a fleet beacon all of a sudden (which is quite an investment by itself if I am not mistaken). From my perspective it looked like Toss players got way better adapting to and dealing with Mutas right now anyways, not saying they don't need something that helps them against mass Muta.
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Comparing BC´s with colossus is simply wrong. It starts with the early access of the current builds an ends with the fact that 3 Upgrade Splash is another thing that 3 Upgrades on Single Target. I dont say taht colossus > BC´s but they are complettly different.
you say that 3 BC´s are not a big investment but thats 9 Medivacs. and i need definatly a minumum of 6 to 8 to re heal my army to deal with the reinforcements. And how do you want rebuild supply in time in lategame situations where the Protoss just can Warp in off 20 gates? And with Feedback its the same as with Thors getting 30 to nearly 50% damage for free and make an amazing tank unit with no costs after that.
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On February 14 2012 19:38 Kharnage wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 17:33 Thrombozyt wrote:On February 14 2012 14:48 Kharnage wrote:On February 14 2012 14:34 mlspmatt wrote:On February 14 2012 13:09 Kharnage wrote:On February 14 2012 12:23 mlspmatt wrote:On February 14 2012 11:58 Kharnage wrote:On February 14 2012 11:28 mlspmatt wrote:On February 14 2012 10:59 Whitewing wrote:On February 14 2012 10:29 Vladoks wrote:
yeah feedback is a big problem for lategame tvp, terran has great units like thors (and well bcs.. i dont know) but can't use them because they lose their hp so fast with feedback :-/ u could emp your own units but ghosts and ghost energy are too precious for that That didn't stop Ryung against Tassadar, and it seemed to work pretty well. Assuming they hit feedback on your BC when it's at completely full energy, it won't even take out half it's hp, and you can EMP it or just Yamato a building or something (or even rocks!). As for upgrades folks, you get them anyway for your vikings. This is what people argue who have no valid arguments to make. Make Battle Cruisers. It's been tried, it doesn't work. If your in a Max v Max battle and want to remax with 4 battle Cruisers. After the battle you start building your BC's, and wait the 90s for them to build. In that 90 seconds Toss can use his 15 gates to wapr in 30 supply 3 times before your BC's hit the field. How do you suggest Terran survives during that 90 seconds when 24 supply is occupied in the starport? That's assuming BC's give you any real advantage, which they don't. 4 Stalkers are about the same cost as 1 BC, are much more mobile, have more health, very similar DPS (Both fully upgraded) and can be produced much much faster. It simply doesn't make sense to make BC's. And yes of course Terran will have marauders to handle the Stalkers, but protoss will have charge-Lots + Archons to handle the marauders. There's no advantage to making BC's. And if you take into consideration the cost of getting the BC tech, it's a losing proposition for terran. Who said anything about re-maxing on BC? When you're remaxing you want as many units as fast as possible so you don't die. It's like Protoss 'remaxing' on Carriers. Good way to die. I'm talking about at the point where you start sacking SCV's to increase army size don't waste your extra size on 4 more marauders when Protoss is already doing everything they can do counter exactly that. The 'upgrades' required are what, a Fusion core and a starport with tech lab? Terran can so afford that at that stage of the late game. The resources are there, the time is there, usually there are too big arse armies dancing around the map, Protoss are trying to get a decent re-max bank and finishing off upgrades. Terran are getting a PFs up and sacking SCV's to for a bigger army. And honestly, pick whatever unit you want, the BC is just an obvious choice. The fact is that Terran banks a shitload of gas in that stage of the game and uses their extra 25 army supply on units that Protoss already has a way to deal with. That 25 supply is Terran's edge in the late game, and it's being squandered away on a handful of extra marines, marauders and maybe an extra ghost. You could fit 3 BC's in there, Yamoto an SCV before battle and use the BC's to control space while you micro your bio. Love to see how those zealots fare as they chase a kiting bio army while under fire from 3 BCs. Yes, some damage will come from storms and feedback on the BCs, yes some stalkers will take them down, but I'd be willing to bet you'd get more value from 3 BCs as your 'bonus supply' than you will from 12 more Maruaders getting stormed and cut apart by colossus. First of all, Terrans are not going to invest in BC tech to make just one round of them. There will come a time when Terran needs to use them as part of their remax army, then they are stuck waiting for them to build while their base is being torn apart, or they engage and lose their entire army. Secondly you pawned off the Stalker issue by saying "Yes, some damage will come from storms and feedback on the BCs, yes some stalkers will take them down"this is what people say when they have no ligitimate response. They pawn it off as no big deal to minimize its importance, when it is the core of the issue. I didn't bring up fedback or storms in my earlier comment. I didn't need to, the Stalkers alone prove the point. There has to be a reason to spend all those resources on BC's and the tech required. There has to be an advantage gained somewhere or it's not worth the investment. You've not yet made a single point as to what advantage the BC's offer. They don't control any space with range 6. Sure, they'll kill a few extra Zealots while your bio army kites, but at the same time the stalkers are killing them. So I, the terran, killed a few extra Zealots with my BC's and your Stalkers killed my BC's. I think Protoss wins that one. You also added that BC's are just an example, and then don't suggest what unit exactley terrans should add that helps them. Thors? Ravens? What unit exactley is going to help Terran so much that it's better than the units that Terran has already invested in and upgraded? And it's not enough to suggest units without saying HOW exactley they are going to help, and if they are better than what terran already has. Otherwise your just "Throwing it out there" with little or no thought behind it and it's not worth much debate. Ok, the reason I didn't throw out 'how' to use it is because something like that needs to be workshopped with people who want to attempt to make it work instead of people who just want to say why it won't. So, there are two kinds of protoss death ball, stalker colossus and zealot colossus. Look at recent GSL Genius vs MKP for a great example of stalker colossus and Parting vs Jjakji for the zealot colossus variant. Obviously is you're facing stalker colossus BC is bad juju. Maybe thors are better in that situation since thors are better vs stalkers? Or maybe you should just be throwing away as many marines as you can and maxxing on pure maruader in that situation. Anyway, assuming you're facing a zealot heavy, low colossus count, low stalker count, high HT count composition like Parting fielded I think BC's would be a great addition for a couple of reasons: Zealots and colossus don't shoot up and the low stalker count will take forever to kill BCs. Infact, 3 BCs will probably kill all the stalkers first. Archons DO shoot up, and will get distracted by the BC. Their damage vs BC is pretty damn awful, so something tanking their damage is great. You can Yamoto the Colossus and / or focus fire the colossus and have no vikings at all. This means that when the colossus die you have supply that can shoot down, which is better than supply that can't shoot down. You can use the BC's as a pivot point to kite around making the micro tasks of the protoss player harder (stopping zealots and colossus from chasing the bio while the range shoots the BC for example). If the protoss player is grabbing HT's from all over the map to bring in storms then he won't be micro'ing his army much which means you can deal with the zealots without the pain of the archons and stalkers. The protoss will probably remax with a bunch of stalkers which eats his resources faster than zealot / HT -> archon meaning you know that remaxing marauder is a great idea. OK. If Terran can catch the protoss in Zealot/Archon/Colossus composition, I see how BC's can work. But it's very risky. If they're scouted and lose the element of surprise I think terran is in deep trouble and it's hard to hide starports from observers. In a straight up fight where both players know the other players composition, and react properly, I don't see the value in BC's. I don't think they offer any value for the extra cost of the tech required. But as a surprise they can work. But again, hiding BC's and their tech is going to be near impossible if the Toss is scouting properly. It's a big risk. Sure BC's can work under the right circumstances, but I don't see it as standard play - which is what we're talking about. Can you define "standard" play for me? Not trolling, just defining scope of discussion. I would think that with terran having such a hard time of "standard" play they would be look for solutions in the "non-standard" box to pull out and use. Especially situational stuff like 'Ah ha! he's over making zealots, slam down that fusion reactor and don't engage. Buy time for 2 BC then crush it". I think we've moved beyond "I get MMM + Ghost or Viking depending on if I see HT or Colossus first and just get as much of that as possible. I hope my EMPs are better than his storms." In the phase of a game, where I can "slam down that fusion reactor" (it's fusion core btw) and get two BCs giving your opponent three minutes to do what he wants can be deadly. But well.. lets say I manage to surprise him with 2 BCs. Also lets say he doesn't just sack 20 zealot with a counter attack and then buys time (the crucial FIVE SECONDS) to warp in 20 stalkers. And lets also say that on the way to the engagemet - BCs moving at breakneck speed - I continue to hide my BCs from his observers. The fight is there!! Terran gets rolled :/ How long does it take a +1 weapon BC to kill a single zealot (who in this phase will have 3/1/3)? 6 shots through the shields, then 20 shots through the HP. So my mighty battlecruiser kills a zealot every 5.85 seconds. Rawr. THAT turns the tide. WIth the typical engagement lasting 10 seconds tops before I have stutter stepped my bio army way out of reach of the BC range, each BC kills TWO zealots. Yes.. eat that protoss. But then you say: Focus the colossus! Colossus takes 19 shots through shields and then 40 shots through the hull. Two BCs firing bring a colossus down in 6.6 seconds. Thus my bio just has to endure 26seconds of colossus fire (or 40 volleys). You know how a bio army looks after 40 volleys of a colossus? Toasted. But maybe the toss is a standard toss who just a-moves and then claps his hand while he giggles gleefully. In THIS case, BC are slightly more useful, because the archons fire at them. But honestly.. in this case I rather float factories over my army. They are cheaper, have WAY more hp and cost no supply and I can build them MUCH MUCH quicker and closer to the battlefield. Now if you start me on the yamato cannon to take down those colossus... then you stretch the time you need to get BCs with yamato by another 2 minutes... just to get feedbacked by the HT that will be in the army. So how do YOU envision the 'BC a la surprise' to work? Buy SOMEHOW more time while you research ship weapons lvl 2+3? It's just a measely 410 seconds - SEVEN MINUTES! Firstly, if someone wants to sack 20 zealots, then dump 2500 mins and 1000 gas to counter 3 BC's then I think you just won the game. Also consider this, stalker armies lost Half their total hp to EMP. Zealot armies lost a Third. Terran is substantially better off facing stalkers than they are zealots. Secondly, you haven't been watching your GSL have you. Every terran in TvP is getting reasonably quick air upgrades to at LEAST +2 air attack at about the time Colossus start appearing. If you had the planning to go "if they are zealot heavy I'll get a fusion core and air attack +3. Swap my 2 starports onto tech labs and get 2 or 3 BCs. Done." Now lets look at how long it takes to tear down a 3/3/3 zealot. 18 shots total, 12 if you land an EMP first. Thirdly, put the cost and build time aside, would you rather have 6 marines VS a chargelot/archon/colossus/HT army or a BC. both are 6 supply. Or 3 Marauders. How much additional help will 3 marauders or 6 marines be when you have 140 supply of MMMGV. And lets say to manage that you also cut say, 1 Viking. So 1 Viking, 1 Marauder and 2 Marines. I think that's worth a BC on the field. Building 1 BC is less supply than a FUCKING DROP. Are you really telling me that losing 1 medivac of marines at end game is game over. You're fucked now! That was 10 supply that wasn't with your army the ENTIRE TIME it was in flight, and then it just DIED MAN! Holy fucking shit, you're ruined!! AND YOU HAD 3 IDLE SCVS!!! Lastly, say the big engagement happens, and all your 3 BCs accomplish is to soak up 2 rounds of stalker fire and kill 3 colossus. That's it. Worth it? FUCK YES. Those colossus are the Might of the protoss army. The big meaty fist of "I don't give a fuck if you have 35 marines, die sucker!!" Fuck the surprise part, WTF are protoss going to do? Go stalker heavy and allow your stimmed bioball to get 1 round of free shots off and EMP'd while they blink under the BCs, losing their colossus support and zealot meat shield to kill them? Get some VR that get slaughtered by vikings or marines and have no upgrades cause protoss NEVER USE AIR in PvT? Ignore the BCs and charge your Planetary Fucking Fortress while their Colossus ALL DIE. BC's are flying TANKS that have a crap load of health and armour and can't be ignored. You have to deal with the damn thing. They aren't going to magically kill everything, they aren't going to rofl stomp their way through the fight. Hell, they won't even live to see the end of the engagement. What they will do is force protoss to a less focused composition. They give you a damn sight more to your end game effectiveness than a viking and 2 marauders, or any other combination of terran units currently in play. The key is to not make too many. Just like colossus. 2 or 3 colossus leaves the terran thinking 'how many vikings is too many and i'll lose to the gateway army? how many is not enough and the colossus kill everything?' If protoss get 12 colossus Terran laugh all the way to victory as they get enough vikings to 1 shot them, EZPZ. How many BCs do you need to be effective, while not allowing protoss to shift their entire composition in such a way to hard counter them. 12 to 18 supply is not a huge commitment, especially if it means you can cut to 6 vikings...
Zealot/Archon/colossus in the most cases starts out with a double forge and templar into colossus. Not colussus into archons. Thus Terran will always have invested their gas in medivacs/ghosts/bio upgrades. Because if they don't, they are dead. Thus as soon as they see their toss opponent adding colossus, they start +1. Maybe Terran has +1 and starts +2, but there is no way, a terran in this situation will already have +2. Yes.. if you open colossus, then air attacks can be at +2, though that's doubtful.
Even if then there is still a straight up engagement, terran is on a constant backmovement stutter stepping. Else zealots overrun the bio. So after 8-10 seconds, the battlecruisers are out of position and not firing. I rather have 4 marines and a marauder stutterstepping the whole way than a battlecruiser. You will have to stutterstep, because 6 food in zealots deal more DPS than 6 food in BC.
Yes, the BC survives - until the toss warps in stalkers to clean them up as they have no support now.
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On February 14 2012 19:50 Thrombozyt wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 18:26 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:23 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:17 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:06 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:01 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 17:50 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 17:42 Thrombozyt wrote:
Suggested changes to make the BC useful:
- Can move while shooting
- Can utilize air-to-ground and air-to-air batteries simultaneously
Optional: Upon research of the behemoth reactor, the BC gains 1 extra dmg.
Those first two are actually really good ideas. what lol? The second one is like the most superbroken thing in the world. "Hey, we thought the second highest dps unit in the game doesn't have enough dps, so we changed it that it deals now +75% damage in most realistic scenarios. "In our next patch we will experiment with hydra range a little bit because it could be higher. We thought about 20." Yeah but have you looked at its DPS for cost? BCs need some kind of buff, they're almost as unused as carriers in high level play. No, because it is an endgame unit. You have to look at its dps per supply as well as the supply cap is one of the most limiting factors at that time. (and you want supplyefficient armies at that time... noone cares about the roach being one of the most costefficient units if you fight 200 vs 200 with it) Also the dps is not the only great thing about the cruiser. 3armor and 550HP as an air unit, that's beefier than an ultralisk. Then add Yamato Canon... There is a reason why a lot of people go mass BC in noncompetetive areas: it's already the best unit in the game statswise and can only be beaten by 1unit per race. If you make the BC only some kind of costefficient as well, you just give Terran an ultimate goal: "get 20cruiser, lift your buildings and you win". I guess the air/ground simultanous attack would not change that BCs could get countered by Corruptor/Voidray/Viking, but it would just make going battlecruise so costefficient, that anytime an opponent uses ground, you would just go BC. If he goes air as well, the costefficieny of the BC investment would go through the roof. If he stays ground... mass BCs and win. Noncompetitive games mean less than nothing for balance purposes. And if the unit is such an "I win" button as you're making it sound, why then is it still almost completely unused in pro tournaments? Edit: Sorry misread that. You were saying it would be that good if given the simultaneous ground and air attack. I'm not convinced that's the case but your argument makes sense. It wouldn't hurt to test it in a PTR though would it? ofc it wouldn't really hurt. But would it hurt to buff hydralisks, carriers, reaper... nerf marines, marauder, banelings, colossi, stalker, roaches.. as well? The question is, does the game need this kind of every unit is available costefficiently? I'm not even sure if the game would be really good, if every unit was balanced in a way that it is evenly good (in some way), because then there would be no real downside of going random units all game long. The actual point I was trying to make initially is that the BC switch praised before in TvP is utter bullshit and it's even more bullshit in TvZ, as in TvZ there is ALWAYS either infestors or corruptors - most likely both - out by the time you make battlecruisers. Yes, in a vacuum, where the terran can spam a ton of BC with full upgrades, they are very good. In a real game situation where things like "how fast can I produce a unit", "how is the likely upgrade situation" and "how much of a reaction does this force out of my opponent" are important, the BC just sucks unbelievably hard. The secondary post (the one that mattered less) with the suggestions that might players lead to consider using battle cruisers got picked up. Even if those suggestions are picked up, I really doubt that in competitive play you would see BCs so much more, because the MOST IMPORTANT drawback of battlecruisers is not adressed. By the time you can field them, they will have 0-1 attack upgrade while its targets will have 2-3 armor upgrades. Suddenly your mighty DPS sucks hard. While we are at the "OMG BC! SO MUCH DPS!" argument: Usually the damage efficiency of a unit is given in DPSPF (damage per second per food). The BC has on equal upgrades against an unarmored target 5.9DPSPF. The zealot has 6.65. The hydralisk has 7.25. Yes, that's right. 3 Zealots deal more dmg to ground targets than 1 battlecruiser, even when on equal upgrades. Three stalkers need 18.7 seconds to kill a carrier. A battlecruiser takes 28.1 seconds to kill that carrier. Same upgrades and all. So spare me with the "OMG BC NO BUFF OR IMBA" howling. You are reinforcing the zerg cliche.
No, the damage efficiency is not usually given in DPSPF. Usually things are being argued in terms of supply or costefficiency. What you want is an overall index to determine how strong a unit universally in a maxed scenario is.
I can't give you one, but I can assure you that the BC beats every other unit in high supply apart from the viking, the void ray and the corruptor.
For the upgrades and how fast you can produce them... actually read my post on the top of the map. I didn't say anything about it in the post you quoted, so you better don't give me shit about that if you want to sound anything but a usual "meh meh meh; now Terran might become balanced but I'm too bad to play it" whiner.
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So when is this patch hitting? It isn't hitting today with the ladder restart right? I assume it will be over on the PTR first?
Never thought about learning the answer to this question and the blog doesn't say anything about the release date from what I can see.
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On February 14 2012 20:21 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 19:50 Thrombozyt wrote:On February 14 2012 18:26 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:23 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:17 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:06 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:01 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 17:50 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 17:42 Thrombozyt wrote:
Suggested changes to make the BC useful:
- Can move while shooting
- Can utilize air-to-ground and air-to-air batteries simultaneously
Optional: Upon research of the behemoth reactor, the BC gains 1 extra dmg.
Those first two are actually really good ideas. what lol? The second one is like the most superbroken thing in the world. "Hey, we thought the second highest dps unit in the game doesn't have enough dps, so we changed it that it deals now +75% damage in most realistic scenarios. "In our next patch we will experiment with hydra range a little bit because it could be higher. We thought about 20." Yeah but have you looked at its DPS for cost? BCs need some kind of buff, they're almost as unused as carriers in high level play. No, because it is an endgame unit. You have to look at its dps per supply as well as the supply cap is one of the most limiting factors at that time. (and you want supplyefficient armies at that time... noone cares about the roach being one of the most costefficient units if you fight 200 vs 200 with it) Also the dps is not the only great thing about the cruiser. 3armor and 550HP as an air unit, that's beefier than an ultralisk. Then add Yamato Canon... There is a reason why a lot of people go mass BC in noncompetetive areas: it's already the best unit in the game statswise and can only be beaten by 1unit per race. If you make the BC only some kind of costefficient as well, you just give Terran an ultimate goal: "get 20cruiser, lift your buildings and you win". I guess the air/ground simultanous attack would not change that BCs could get countered by Corruptor/Voidray/Viking, but it would just make going battlecruise so costefficient, that anytime an opponent uses ground, you would just go BC. If he goes air as well, the costefficieny of the BC investment would go through the roof. If he stays ground... mass BCs and win. Noncompetitive games mean less than nothing for balance purposes. And if the unit is such an "I win" button as you're making it sound, why then is it still almost completely unused in pro tournaments? Edit: Sorry misread that. You were saying it would be that good if given the simultaneous ground and air attack. I'm not convinced that's the case but your argument makes sense. It wouldn't hurt to test it in a PTR though would it? ofc it wouldn't really hurt. But would it hurt to buff hydralisks, carriers, reaper... nerf marines, marauder, banelings, colossi, stalker, roaches.. as well? The question is, does the game need this kind of every unit is available costefficiently? I'm not even sure if the game would be really good, if every unit was balanced in a way that it is evenly good (in some way), because then there would be no real downside of going random units all game long. The actual point I was trying to make initially is that the BC switch praised before in TvP is utter bullshit and it's even more bullshit in TvZ, as in TvZ there is ALWAYS either infestors or corruptors - most likely both - out by the time you make battlecruisers. Yes, in a vacuum, where the terran can spam a ton of BC with full upgrades, they are very good. In a real game situation where things like "how fast can I produce a unit", "how is the likely upgrade situation" and "how much of a reaction does this force out of my opponent" are important, the BC just sucks unbelievably hard. The secondary post (the one that mattered less) with the suggestions that might players lead to consider using battle cruisers got picked up. Even if those suggestions are picked up, I really doubt that in competitive play you would see BCs so much more, because the MOST IMPORTANT drawback of battlecruisers is not adressed. By the time you can field them, they will have 0-1 attack upgrade while its targets will have 2-3 armor upgrades. Suddenly your mighty DPS sucks hard. While we are at the "OMG BC! SO MUCH DPS!" argument: Usually the damage efficiency of a unit is given in DPSPF (damage per second per food). The BC has on equal upgrades against an unarmored target 5.9DPSPF. The zealot has 6.65. The hydralisk has 7.25. Yes, that's right. 3 Zealots deal more dmg to ground targets than 1 battlecruiser, even when on equal upgrades. Three stalkers need 18.7 seconds to kill a carrier. A battlecruiser takes 28.1 seconds to kill that carrier. Same upgrades and all. So spare me with the "OMG BC NO BUFF OR IMBA" howling. You are reinforcing the zerg cliche. No, the damage efficiency is not usually given in DPSPF. Usually things are being argued in terms of supply or costefficiency. What you want is an overall index to determine how strong a unit universally in a maxed scenario is. I can't give you one, but I can assure you that the BC beats every other unit in high supply apart from the viking, the void ray and the corruptor. For the upgrades and how fast you can produce them... actually read my post on the top of the map. I didn't say anything about it in the post you quoted, so you better don't give me shit about that if you want to sound anything but a usual "meh meh meh; now Terran might become balanced but I'm too bad to play it" whiner.
Thats just not true. For example bcs lose like hell to blink stalker + ht.
I remember a sick 50 Minute game Happy vs some protoss (i believe it was ToD) on Tal'Darim where the toss kills > 10 BC
with < 20 stalkers and some hts without losing ANYTHING.
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I actually think the pheonix upgrade is quite good, because as stated in the blizzard report, it says that this will allow protoss players to deal more easily with mass mutalisk, now if this change works out the way they intend to, pheonixes will be viable to mass mutas, which means theres no role for the tempest. No role for the tempest, the tempest wont be implemented, with no tempest, carrier stays, which every protoss is complaining about is getting removed.
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On February 14 2012 20:27 SevenShots wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 20:21 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 19:50 Thrombozyt wrote:On February 14 2012 18:26 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:23 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:17 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:06 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:01 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 17:50 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 17:42 Thrombozyt wrote:
Suggested changes to make the BC useful:
- Can move while shooting
- Can utilize air-to-ground and air-to-air batteries simultaneously
Optional: Upon research of the behemoth reactor, the BC gains 1 extra dmg.
Those first two are actually really good ideas. what lol? The second one is like the most superbroken thing in the world. "Hey, we thought the second highest dps unit in the game doesn't have enough dps, so we changed it that it deals now +75% damage in most realistic scenarios. "In our next patch we will experiment with hydra range a little bit because it could be higher. We thought about 20." Yeah but have you looked at its DPS for cost? BCs need some kind of buff, they're almost as unused as carriers in high level play. No, because it is an endgame unit. You have to look at its dps per supply as well as the supply cap is one of the most limiting factors at that time. (and you want supplyefficient armies at that time... noone cares about the roach being one of the most costefficient units if you fight 200 vs 200 with it) Also the dps is not the only great thing about the cruiser. 3armor and 550HP as an air unit, that's beefier than an ultralisk. Then add Yamato Canon... There is a reason why a lot of people go mass BC in noncompetetive areas: it's already the best unit in the game statswise and can only be beaten by 1unit per race. If you make the BC only some kind of costefficient as well, you just give Terran an ultimate goal: "get 20cruiser, lift your buildings and you win". I guess the air/ground simultanous attack would not change that BCs could get countered by Corruptor/Voidray/Viking, but it would just make going battlecruise so costefficient, that anytime an opponent uses ground, you would just go BC. If he goes air as well, the costefficieny of the BC investment would go through the roof. If he stays ground... mass BCs and win. Noncompetitive games mean less than nothing for balance purposes. And if the unit is such an "I win" button as you're making it sound, why then is it still almost completely unused in pro tournaments? Edit: Sorry misread that. You were saying it would be that good if given the simultaneous ground and air attack. I'm not convinced that's the case but your argument makes sense. It wouldn't hurt to test it in a PTR though would it? ofc it wouldn't really hurt. But would it hurt to buff hydralisks, carriers, reaper... nerf marines, marauder, banelings, colossi, stalker, roaches.. as well? The question is, does the game need this kind of every unit is available costefficiently? I'm not even sure if the game would be really good, if every unit was balanced in a way that it is evenly good (in some way), because then there would be no real downside of going random units all game long. The actual point I was trying to make initially is that the BC switch praised before in TvP is utter bullshit and it's even more bullshit in TvZ, as in TvZ there is ALWAYS either infestors or corruptors - most likely both - out by the time you make battlecruisers. Yes, in a vacuum, where the terran can spam a ton of BC with full upgrades, they are very good. In a real game situation where things like "how fast can I produce a unit", "how is the likely upgrade situation" and "how much of a reaction does this force out of my opponent" are important, the BC just sucks unbelievably hard. The secondary post (the one that mattered less) with the suggestions that might players lead to consider using battle cruisers got picked up. Even if those suggestions are picked up, I really doubt that in competitive play you would see BCs so much more, because the MOST IMPORTANT drawback of battlecruisers is not adressed. By the time you can field them, they will have 0-1 attack upgrade while its targets will have 2-3 armor upgrades. Suddenly your mighty DPS sucks hard. While we are at the "OMG BC! SO MUCH DPS!" argument: Usually the damage efficiency of a unit is given in DPSPF (damage per second per food). The BC has on equal upgrades against an unarmored target 5.9DPSPF. The zealot has 6.65. The hydralisk has 7.25. Yes, that's right. 3 Zealots deal more dmg to ground targets than 1 battlecruiser, even when on equal upgrades. Three stalkers need 18.7 seconds to kill a carrier. A battlecruiser takes 28.1 seconds to kill that carrier. Same upgrades and all. So spare me with the "OMG BC NO BUFF OR IMBA" howling. You are reinforcing the zerg cliche. No, the damage efficiency is not usually given in DPSPF. Usually things are being argued in terms of supply or costefficiency. What you want is an overall index to determine how strong a unit universally in a maxed scenario is. I can't give you one, but I can assure you that the BC beats every other unit in high supply apart from the viking, the void ray and the corruptor. For the upgrades and how fast you can produce them... actually read my post on the top of the map. I didn't say anything about it in the post you quoted, so you better don't give me shit about that if you want to sound anything but a usual "meh meh meh; now Terran might become balanced but I'm too bad to play it" whiner. Thats just not true. For example bcs lose like hell to blink stalker + ht. I remember a sick 50 Minute game Happy vs some protoss (i believe it was ToD) on Tal'Darim where the toss kills > 10 BC with < 20 stalkers and some hts without losing ANYTHING.
And BC/Ghost beats that. I was talking monocompositions, but yeah, in a real game even the battlecruiser is a unit which has to be properly supported.
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On February 14 2012 20:39 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 20:27 SevenShots wrote:On February 14 2012 20:21 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 19:50 Thrombozyt wrote:On February 14 2012 18:26 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:23 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:17 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:06 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:01 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 17:50 GreatestThreat wrote:
[quote]
Those first two are actually really good ideas. what lol? The second one is like the most superbroken thing in the world. "Hey, we thought the second highest dps unit in the game doesn't have enough dps, so we changed it that it deals now +75% damage in most realistic scenarios. "In our next patch we will experiment with hydra range a little bit because it could be higher. We thought about 20." Yeah but have you looked at its DPS for cost? BCs need some kind of buff, they're almost as unused as carriers in high level play. No, because it is an endgame unit. You have to look at its dps per supply as well as the supply cap is one of the most limiting factors at that time. (and you want supplyefficient armies at that time... noone cares about the roach being one of the most costefficient units if you fight 200 vs 200 with it) Also the dps is not the only great thing about the cruiser. 3armor and 550HP as an air unit, that's beefier than an ultralisk. Then add Yamato Canon... There is a reason why a lot of people go mass BC in noncompetetive areas: it's already the best unit in the game statswise and can only be beaten by 1unit per race. If you make the BC only some kind of costefficient as well, you just give Terran an ultimate goal: "get 20cruiser, lift your buildings and you win". I guess the air/ground simultanous attack would not change that BCs could get countered by Corruptor/Voidray/Viking, but it would just make going battlecruise so costefficient, that anytime an opponent uses ground, you would just go BC. If he goes air as well, the costefficieny of the BC investment would go through the roof. If he stays ground... mass BCs and win. Noncompetitive games mean less than nothing for balance purposes. And if the unit is such an "I win" button as you're making it sound, why then is it still almost completely unused in pro tournaments? Edit: Sorry misread that. You were saying it would be that good if given the simultaneous ground and air attack. I'm not convinced that's the case but your argument makes sense. It wouldn't hurt to test it in a PTR though would it? ofc it wouldn't really hurt. But would it hurt to buff hydralisks, carriers, reaper... nerf marines, marauder, banelings, colossi, stalker, roaches.. as well? The question is, does the game need this kind of every unit is available costefficiently? I'm not even sure if the game would be really good, if every unit was balanced in a way that it is evenly good (in some way), because then there would be no real downside of going random units all game long. The actual point I was trying to make initially is that the BC switch praised before in TvP is utter bullshit and it's even more bullshit in TvZ, as in TvZ there is ALWAYS either infestors or corruptors - most likely both - out by the time you make battlecruisers. Yes, in a vacuum, where the terran can spam a ton of BC with full upgrades, they are very good. In a real game situation where things like "how fast can I produce a unit", "how is the likely upgrade situation" and "how much of a reaction does this force out of my opponent" are important, the BC just sucks unbelievably hard. The secondary post (the one that mattered less) with the suggestions that might players lead to consider using battle cruisers got picked up. Even if those suggestions are picked up, I really doubt that in competitive play you would see BCs so much more, because the MOST IMPORTANT drawback of battlecruisers is not adressed. By the time you can field them, they will have 0-1 attack upgrade while its targets will have 2-3 armor upgrades. Suddenly your mighty DPS sucks hard. While we are at the "OMG BC! SO MUCH DPS!" argument: Usually the damage efficiency of a unit is given in DPSPF (damage per second per food). The BC has on equal upgrades against an unarmored target 5.9DPSPF. The zealot has 6.65. The hydralisk has 7.25. Yes, that's right. 3 Zealots deal more dmg to ground targets than 1 battlecruiser, even when on equal upgrades. Three stalkers need 18.7 seconds to kill a carrier. A battlecruiser takes 28.1 seconds to kill that carrier. Same upgrades and all. So spare me with the "OMG BC NO BUFF OR IMBA" howling. You are reinforcing the zerg cliche. No, the damage efficiency is not usually given in DPSPF. Usually things are being argued in terms of supply or costefficiency. What you want is an overall index to determine how strong a unit universally in a maxed scenario is. I can't give you one, but I can assure you that the BC beats every other unit in high supply apart from the viking, the void ray and the corruptor. For the upgrades and how fast you can produce them... actually read my post on the top of the map. I didn't say anything about it in the post you quoted, so you better don't give me shit about that if you want to sound anything but a usual "meh meh meh; now Terran might become balanced but I'm too bad to play it" whiner. Thats just not true. For example bcs lose like hell to blink stalker + ht. I remember a sick 50 Minute game Happy vs some protoss (i believe it was ToD) on Tal'Darim where the toss kills > 10 BC with < 20 stalkers and some hts without losing ANYTHING. And BC/Ghost beats that. I was talking monocompositions, but yeah, in a real game even the battlecruiser is a unit which has to be properly supported.
BC Ghost ? Ever looked at the Costs and buildtime compared to HT Stalkers ? HT's and Stalker both come from the Warpgate and have a cooldown of 32/45 second without chronoboost. BC's take a whopping 90! seconds to build . Thats 2 entire warpin circles of HT or almost 3 of Stalkers while not beeing much stronger then both of those on even supply.
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nwm... I really don't care.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
On February 14 2012 20:39 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 20:27 SevenShots wrote:On February 14 2012 20:21 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 19:50 Thrombozyt wrote:On February 14 2012 18:26 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:23 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:17 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:06 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:01 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 17:50 GreatestThreat wrote:
[quote]
Those first two are actually really good ideas. what lol? The second one is like the most superbroken thing in the world. "Hey, we thought the second highest dps unit in the game doesn't have enough dps, so we changed it that it deals now +75% damage in most realistic scenarios. "In our next patch we will experiment with hydra range a little bit because it could be higher. We thought about 20." Yeah but have you looked at its DPS for cost? BCs need some kind of buff, they're almost as unused as carriers in high level play. No, because it is an endgame unit. You have to look at its dps per supply as well as the supply cap is one of the most limiting factors at that time. (and you want supplyefficient armies at that time... noone cares about the roach being one of the most costefficient units if you fight 200 vs 200 with it) Also the dps is not the only great thing about the cruiser. 3armor and 550HP as an air unit, that's beefier than an ultralisk. Then add Yamato Canon... There is a reason why a lot of people go mass BC in noncompetetive areas: it's already the best unit in the game statswise and can only be beaten by 1unit per race. If you make the BC only some kind of costefficient as well, you just give Terran an ultimate goal: "get 20cruiser, lift your buildings and you win". I guess the air/ground simultanous attack would not change that BCs could get countered by Corruptor/Voidray/Viking, but it would just make going battlecruise so costefficient, that anytime an opponent uses ground, you would just go BC. If he goes air as well, the costefficieny of the BC investment would go through the roof. If he stays ground... mass BCs and win. Noncompetitive games mean less than nothing for balance purposes. And if the unit is such an "I win" button as you're making it sound, why then is it still almost completely unused in pro tournaments? Edit: Sorry misread that. You were saying it would be that good if given the simultaneous ground and air attack. I'm not convinced that's the case but your argument makes sense. It wouldn't hurt to test it in a PTR though would it? ofc it wouldn't really hurt. But would it hurt to buff hydralisks, carriers, reaper... nerf marines, marauder, banelings, colossi, stalker, roaches.. as well? The question is, does the game need this kind of every unit is available costefficiently? I'm not even sure if the game would be really good, if every unit was balanced in a way that it is evenly good (in some way), because then there would be no real downside of going random units all game long. The actual point I was trying to make initially is that the BC switch praised before in TvP is utter bullshit and it's even more bullshit in TvZ, as in TvZ there is ALWAYS either infestors or corruptors - most likely both - out by the time you make battlecruisers. Yes, in a vacuum, where the terran can spam a ton of BC with full upgrades, they are very good. In a real game situation where things like "how fast can I produce a unit", "how is the likely upgrade situation" and "how much of a reaction does this force out of my opponent" are important, the BC just sucks unbelievably hard. The secondary post (the one that mattered less) with the suggestions that might players lead to consider using battle cruisers got picked up. Even if those suggestions are picked up, I really doubt that in competitive play you would see BCs so much more, because the MOST IMPORTANT drawback of battlecruisers is not adressed. By the time you can field them, they will have 0-1 attack upgrade while its targets will have 2-3 armor upgrades. Suddenly your mighty DPS sucks hard. While we are at the "OMG BC! SO MUCH DPS!" argument: Usually the damage efficiency of a unit is given in DPSPF (damage per second per food). The BC has on equal upgrades against an unarmored target 5.9DPSPF. The zealot has 6.65. The hydralisk has 7.25. Yes, that's right. 3 Zealots deal more dmg to ground targets than 1 battlecruiser, even when on equal upgrades. Three stalkers need 18.7 seconds to kill a carrier. A battlecruiser takes 28.1 seconds to kill that carrier. Same upgrades and all. So spare me with the "OMG BC NO BUFF OR IMBA" howling. You are reinforcing the zerg cliche. No, the damage efficiency is not usually given in DPSPF. Usually things are being argued in terms of supply or costefficiency. What you want is an overall index to determine how strong a unit universally in a maxed scenario is. I can't give you one, but I can assure you that the BC beats every other unit in high supply apart from the viking, the void ray and the corruptor. For the upgrades and how fast you can produce them... actually read my post on the top of the map. I didn't say anything about it in the post you quoted, so you better don't give me shit about that if you want to sound anything but a usual "meh meh meh; now Terran might become balanced but I'm too bad to play it" whiner. Thats just not true. For example bcs lose like hell to blink stalker + ht. I remember a sick 50 Minute game Happy vs some protoss (i believe it was ToD) on Tal'Darim where the toss kills > 10 BC with < 20 stalkers and some hts without losing ANYTHING. And BC/Ghost beats that. I was talking monocompositions, but yeah, in a real game even the battlecruiser is a unit which has to be properly supported.
"even the battlecruiser"
that sounds so funny.
sorry for off-top.
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Here's a unit that could actually work in lategame TvP rather than Battlecruisers, and it's speed reapers.
The why's:
You already have all the required tech/upgrades, a shitton of barracks with tech labs, all dat floaty gas.
They are extremely supply efficient and cheap on minerals.
They can kill off twice the supply of chargelots with kiting (10 reapers with perfect kiting vs 10 chargelots and the reapers win astoundingly) meaning that chargelot reinforcements are weaker, especially with marauder and medivac support.
They can jump into bases and snipe expansions and probes faster than anything else without requiring any medivac backup, while dealing with any realistic gateway reinforcement. (10 supply of reapers trade very well with 10 supply worth of stalkers), or else escape if victory is not possible.
You can snipe HTs easily with them.
You can combine them into your main army, and they can keep up with stimmed bio while destroying zealots.
Cons: Their slow build time. This is it really. They're not particularly fragile, but they build slow. In a remaxing war you can't really afford going mass reapers. The key timing to use them is after you win a big engagement and expect mass zealot reinforcements, or if you are at 190/200 food and need to fill those last supply out. Get ten reapers, roam around and wreak havoc with them, join them in the battle against the enemy to kill off zealots faster, and rape zealot reinforcements.
Reapers have their issues, but they're a lot more viable than battlecruisers for TvP in the endgame. I started contemplating using reapers just to harass bases after I ended up in a split map scenario with a protoss in one game where I had the income and was steady on max food with all the tech, but the more I think about it the more I think that reapers might actually be a crucial and overlooked unit in Tvp.
Now, can we stop derailing the discussion. Let's go back to discussing patch changes and not the TvP matchup.
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On February 14 2012 21:14 Dalavita wrote:
Here's a unit that could actually work in lategame TvP rather than Battlecruisers, and it's speed reapers.
The why's:
You already have all the required tech/upgrades, a shitton of barracks with tech labs, all dat floaty gas.
They are extremely supply efficient and cheap on minerals.
They can kill off twice the supply of chargelots with kiting (10 reapers with perfect kiting vs 10 chargelots and the reapers win astoundingly) meaning that chargelot reinforcements are weaker, especially with marauder and medivac support.
They can jump into bases and snipe expansions and probes faster than anything else without requiring any medivac backup, while dealing with any realistic gateway reinforcement. (10 supply of reapers trade very well with 10 supply worth of stalkers), or else escape if victory is not possible.
You can combine them into your main army, and they can keep up with stimmed bio while destroying zealots.
Cons: Their slow build time. This is it really. They're not particularly fragile, but they build slowIn a remaxing war you can't really afford going mass reapers. The key timing to use them is after you win a big engagement and expect mass zealot reinforcements, or if you are at 190/200 food and need to fill those last supply out. Get ten reapers, roam around and wreak havoc with them, join them in the battle against the enemy to kill off zealots faster, and rape zealot reinforcements.
Reapers have their issues, but they're a lot more viable than battlecruisers for TvP in the endgame.
Now, can we stop derailing the discussion. Let's go back to discussing patch changes and not the TvP matchup.
You do know that they have less HP then Combat Shielded Marines ?
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On February 14 2012 21:12 Ganseng wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 20:39 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 20:27 SevenShots wrote:On February 14 2012 20:21 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 19:50 Thrombozyt wrote:On February 14 2012 18:26 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:23 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:17 Big J wrote:On February 14 2012 18:06 GreatestThreat wrote:On February 14 2012 18:01 Big J wrote:
[quote]
what lol? The second one is like the most superbroken thing in the world.
"Hey, we thought the second highest dps unit in the game doesn't have enough dps, so we changed it that it deals now +75% damage in most realistic scenarios.
"In our next patch we will experiment with hydra range a little bit because it could be higher. We thought about 20." Yeah but have you looked at its DPS for cost? BCs need some kind of buff, they're almost as unused as carriers in high level play. No, because it is an endgame unit. You have to look at its dps per supply as well as the supply cap is one of the most limiting factors at that time. (and you want supplyefficient armies at that time... noone cares about the roach being one of the most costefficient units if you fight 200 vs 200 with it) Also the dps is not the only great thing about the cruiser. 3armor and 550HP as an air unit, that's beefier than an ultralisk. Then add Yamato Canon... There is a reason why a lot of people go mass BC in noncompetetive areas: it's already the best unit in the game statswise and can only be beaten by 1unit per race. If you make the BC only some kind of costefficient as well, you just give Terran an ultimate goal: "get 20cruiser, lift your buildings and you win". I guess the air/ground simultanous attack would not change that BCs could get countered by Corruptor/Voidray/Viking, but it would just make going battlecruise so costefficient, that anytime an opponent uses ground, you would just go BC. If he goes air as well, the costefficieny of the BC investment would go through the roof. If he stays ground... mass BCs and win. Noncompetitive games mean less than nothing for balance purposes. And if the unit is such an "I win" button as you're making it sound, why then is it still almost completely unused in pro tournaments? Edit: Sorry misread that. You were saying it would be that good if given the simultaneous ground and air attack. I'm not convinced that's the case but your argument makes sense. It wouldn't hurt to test it in a PTR though would it? ofc it wouldn't really hurt. But would it hurt to buff hydralisks, carriers, reaper... nerf marines, marauder, banelings, colossi, stalker, roaches.. as well? The question is, does the game need this kind of every unit is available costefficiently? I'm not even sure if the game would be really good, if every unit was balanced in a way that it is evenly good (in some way), because then there would be no real downside of going random units all game long. The actual point I was trying to make initially is that the BC switch praised before in TvP is utter bullshit and it's even more bullshit in TvZ, as in TvZ there is ALWAYS either infestors or corruptors - most likely both - out by the time you make battlecruisers. Yes, in a vacuum, where the terran can spam a ton of BC with full upgrades, they are very good. In a real game situation where things like "how fast can I produce a unit", "how is the likely upgrade situation" and "how much of a reaction does this force out of my opponent" are important, the BC just sucks unbelievably hard. The secondary post (the one that mattered less) with the suggestions that might players lead to consider using battle cruisers got picked up. Even if those suggestions are picked up, I really doubt that in competitive play you would see BCs so much more, because the MOST IMPORTANT drawback of battlecruisers is not adressed. By the time you can field them, they will have 0-1 attack upgrade while its targets will have 2-3 armor upgrades. Suddenly your mighty DPS sucks hard. While we are at the "OMG BC! SO MUCH DPS!" argument: Usually the damage efficiency of a unit is given in DPSPF (damage per second per food). The BC has on equal upgrades against an unarmored target 5.9DPSPF. The zealot has 6.65. The hydralisk has 7.25. Yes, that's right. 3 Zealots deal more dmg to ground targets than 1 battlecruiser, even when on equal upgrades. Three stalkers need 18.7 seconds to kill a carrier. A battlecruiser takes 28.1 seconds to kill that carrier. Same upgrades and all. So spare me with the "OMG BC NO BUFF OR IMBA" howling. You are reinforcing the zerg cliche. No, the damage efficiency is not usually given in DPSPF. Usually things are being argued in terms of supply or costefficiency. What you want is an overall index to determine how strong a unit universally in a maxed scenario is. I can't give you one, but I can assure you that the BC beats every other unit in high supply apart from the viking, the void ray and the corruptor. For the upgrades and how fast you can produce them... actually read my post on the top of the map. I didn't say anything about it in the post you quoted, so you better don't give me shit about that if you want to sound anything but a usual "meh meh meh; now Terran might become balanced but I'm too bad to play it" whiner. Thats just not true. For example bcs lose like hell to blink stalker + ht. I remember a sick 50 Minute game Happy vs some protoss (i believe it was ToD) on Tal'Darim where the toss kills > 10 BC with < 20 stalkers and some hts without losing ANYTHING. And BC/Ghost beats that. I was talking monocompositions, but yeah, in a real game even the battlecruiser is a unit which has to be properly supported. "even the battlecruiser" that sounds so funny. sorry for off-top.
yeah I know. Reading about Terrans who think that going their "ultimate weapon" and nothing else should be a good strategy is really funny.
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On February 14 2012 21:18 s3rp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 21:14 Dalavita wrote:
Here's a unit that could actually work in lategame TvP rather than Battlecruisers, and it's speed reapers.
The why's:
You already have all the required tech/upgrades, a shitton of barracks with tech labs, all dat floaty gas.
They are extremely supply efficient and cheap on minerals.
They can kill off twice the supply of chargelots with kiting (10 reapers with perfect kiting vs 10 chargelots and the reapers win astoundingly) meaning that chargelot reinforcements are weaker, especially with marauder and medivac support.
They can jump into bases and snipe expansions and probes faster than anything else without requiring any medivac backup, while dealing with any realistic gateway reinforcement. (10 supply of reapers trade very well with 10 supply worth of stalkers), or else escape if victory is not possible.
You can combine them into your main army, and they can keep up with stimmed bio while destroying zealots.
Cons: Their slow build time. This is it really. They're not particularly fragile, but they build slowIn a remaxing war you can't really afford going mass reapers. The key timing to use them is after you win a big engagement and expect mass zealot reinforcements, or if you are at 190/200 food and need to fill those last supply out. Get ten reapers, roam around and wreak havoc with them, join them in the battle against the enemy to kill off zealots faster, and rape zealot reinforcements.
Reapers have their issues, but they're a lot more viable than battlecruisers for TvP in the endgame.
Now, can we stop derailing the discussion. Let's go back to discussing patch changes and not the TvP matchup.
You do know that they have less HP then Combat Shielded Marines ?
By five, yes. You do know this changes none of my points?
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On February 14 2012 21:20 Dalavita wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2012 21:18 s3rp wrote:On February 14 2012 21:14 Dalavita wrote:
Here's a unit that could actually work in lategame TvP rather than Battlecruisers, and it's speed reapers.
The why's:
You already have all the required tech/upgrades, a shitton of barracks with tech labs, all dat floaty gas.
They are extremely supply efficient and cheap on minerals.
They can kill off twice the supply of chargelots with kiting (10 reapers with perfect kiting vs 10 chargelots and the reapers win astoundingly) meaning that chargelot reinforcements are weaker, especially with marauder and medivac support.
They can jump into bases and snipe expansions and probes faster than anything else without requiring any medivac backup, while dealing with any realistic gateway reinforcement. (10 supply of reapers trade very well with 10 supply worth of stalkers), or else escape if victory is not possible.
You can combine them into your main army, and they can keep up with stimmed bio while destroying zealots.
Cons: Their slow build time. This is it really. They're not particularly fragile, but they build slowIn a remaxing war you can't really afford going mass reapers. The key timing to use them is after you win a big engagement and expect mass zealot reinforcements, or if you are at 190/200 food and need to fill those last supply out. Get ten reapers, roam around and wreak havoc with them, join them in the battle against the enemy to kill off zealots faster, and rape zealot reinforcements.
Reapers have their issues, but they're a lot more viable than battlecruisers for TvP in the endgame.
Now, can we stop derailing the discussion. Let's go back to discussing patch changes and not the TvP matchup.
You do know that they have less HP then Combat Shielded Marines ? By five, yes. You do know this changes none of my points?
Well if a Unit with less Hp then a Marine isn't fragile i don't know what else is ... They die if you only looked at them the wrong way.
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EPT
